Your First Django App: Creating Views and URLs

In our previous guide, you set up an empty Django project. Now it’s time to delve into Django Views and URLs to make it do something.

In Django, a “Project” is the whole website. An “App” is a specific piece of functionality (like a blog, a forum, or a user profile system). A project can have many apps, each potentially with its own configuration for Views and URLs in Django applications.

Step 1: Create an App

Make sure your virtual environment is active. We’ll create an app called pages to handle simple static pages (like a homepage) and map these to specific Django URLs.

python manage.py startapp pages

You’ll see a new pages/ folder appear next to config/, containing files crucial for Django Views and URLs setup.

Step 2: Install the App

You must tell Django that this new app exists. Open config/settings.py and find the INSTALLED_APPS list. Add 'pages', to the bottom, integrating it into the Django URLs processing.

# config/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    # ... other default apps ...
    'pages',  # <-- Add your new app here!
]

Step 3: Write a View

A View is just a Python function that takes a web request and returns a web response. Open pages/views.py to begin creating a Django view function that enhances the connection between Views and URLs.

# pages/views.py
from django.http import HttpResponse

def home_page_view(request):
    return HttpResponse("Hello, World! This is my first Django page.")

Step 4: Connect the URL

Now we need to tell Django: “When someone visits the homepage, use the home_page_view function.”

We do this in two steps using Django URLs.

A. Create pages/urls.py This file doesn’t exist yet. Create it and add this code:

# pages/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from .views import home_page_view

urlpatterns = [
    path('', home_page_view, name='home'),
]

This means: “If the URL path is empty (''), call home_page_view.”

B. Update the main config/urls.py Now, point the main project URLs to your app URLs by establishing Django Views and URLs connectivity throughout your project.

# config/urls.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include  # Import 'include'

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('pages.urls')),  # Add this line!
]

Step 5: Test It!

Run the server again:

python manage.py runserver

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/. Instead of the rocket ship, you should now see: “Hello, World! This is my first Django page.” This demonstrates the successful setup of using URLs and Views within Django.